Saturday, December 27, 2008

All the keys you are

Continuing with the famous tune 'All the things you are'.

Here, I'm hoping to motivate pianists to play things in multiple keys. Here's a folder where I stored the tune in several keys. I played just the melody, doubled in the left hand. Playing with the left hand is a good way to memorize the melody while giving the left hand a good workout.

Then I played the tune 2+2 style, meaning 1-3, 1-7 in the left hand, while playing melody + 3 or 7 in the right hand.

http://www.box.net/shared/m3f03ev52d

Nothing really fancy here, but a couple of things are worth noting: - Don't transpose on paper. - 'All The things you' are uses a lot of 3rds. It's a good quick way to find out the harmonies. - After a while, you stop thinking and start using the ear to find both the melody and the harmonies. "All the things you are" is a good tune because it modulates a lot, but uses fairly simple chords and lots of two-fives. The only 2 unusual chords are (in Ab), the C7+ and the Bdim. That's all that needs to be memorized really. The rest can be worked out by ear.